


Let My Love Open the Door

by acacia59



Series: Let My Love [3]
Category: The Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:30:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acacia59/pseuds/acacia59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have been in a band together for eleven years. Can they finally find some measure of happiness together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let My Love Open the Door

***

 

“…from the waist on down,” Roger tried to concentrate on the lyrics and not on the two men standing to the right and the left of him.

 

“…but I feel tired and bound,” he stared resolutely ahead. He definitely did not look at the dark haired man in the white jacket.

 

“…dreaming, of the day I can control myself.” Suddenly, Pete leap into the air and the abrupt movement in the corner of his eye caught Roger’s attention. He turned his head to watch and as Pete landed, their gaze met unexpectedly. Roger whipped his head away, but not before a strange tingling sensation had swept from the top of his head to the tips of his fingers. He was impulsively and unaccountably angry at the other man and stumbled over the next lyrics. He heard Keith snicker behind him through the crash of the drums and clenched his jaw, his anger pooling in his stomach and his fists.

 

He finished the last verse and sent the microphone flying in a smooth and practiced arc. Pete stumbled forward and in front of him as he landed a scissor kick awkwardly. Roger reversed the path of the microphone and threw it out in wider circle. It whirled past Pete’s head, inches from his ear. As Pete threw his head up in surprise, Roger pulled the microphone back in, caught it without looking above his own head and turned and left the stage.

 

***

 

Keith threw down his drum sticks in the crowded dressing room and began searching for a glass of water. Finally spying one between two scantily clad women who seemed to be more interested in each other than anyone associated with the band, Keith made a mental note of that, seized the glass and dumped the contents over his head. As the cool water coursed through his sweat soaked hair and down the back of his shirt, he relished the temporary relief from the heat of the set’s exertion. He wondered if shows had always been this physically demanding or whether he was just getting old.

 

_Moonie, you’re getting philosophical. It must be time for booze and pills, not necessarily in that order,_ he thought as he scanned the room. He felt his heart racing from the pent up adrenaline of the show. _Hmm, uppers or downers? That is the question._ He spied a couple of blokes across the room that could always be counted on for a good night out and he thought about the two lovely ladies. _I suppose it depends on whether good ol’ Johnny boy is interested in seeing the sights of…Bloomington, or wherever the hell we are. Or whether he thinks our hotel needs…redecorating. Where is the bloody bastard, anyway?_

Keith searched the room for the familiar dark head. As he did so, an unfamiliar sense of unease began to creep up over him. He wasn’t the sort to think things through overmuch before doing them, he left that to Pete, but John had been rather skittish about spending time together lately and Keith figured that to get what he wanted, he needed to play his cards just right.

 

Keith pushed his way out to the hall, ignoring the calls of various friends, acquaintances and people who weren’t either but were eager to become at least one.

 

“Oi! Moon! I got some fireworks, how ‘bout it?”

 

“Hey, Keith, we thought you could settle this bet!”

“You look a bit lonely tonight, sugar, I could be some good company, if you like.”

 

He brushed them all off, feeling that old well-known urge to please, trying not to think about how only a few years ago he would have been making the rounds, up to his eyeballs in a fawning audience and more trouble than any of them could handle. With John tagging along, no doubt. _Now here I am, dodging my spectators and trying to track down that slippery bastard…Oh!_

Keith practically ran over the taller man, who was lurking in the hall just outside the doorway, smoking a crumpled cigarette cupped in his hand and holding a bottle of whiskey loosely in the other hand hanging by his side.

 

“Steady on, mate,” John said with a slow smile as Keith skittered to a stop. As soon as Keith caught his balance again, John solemnly held out the whiskey bottle to him. He took it and downed a quick gulp, suddenly aware of the pounding of blood deep in his ears.

 

He tried to rearrange his face into a jovial grin and affected a jaunty Irish brogue. “So, my lad, what be the plans for the party tonight? Unless the lad has a wee lass to hurry back to?”

 

A flicker of a smile crossed John’s face, hidden in his beard but passing briefly through his eyes. “Ahh, I don’t know, Keith, maybe we should just stay in.”

 

“Aha! A spoilsport, eh?” Keith attempted a poke to John’s ribs, but the bassist swatted his hand away without looking. “Worried about getting into too much trouble?”

 

At his words, John twitched and reached out his hand as if he was about to touch Keith’s face. He glanced away from the shorter man and his hand wandered aimlessly in the air for a moment before he pushed it through his dark hair and sighed.

 

“Yeah, worried about getting into trouble. Seems like I’ve been getting into too much trouble lately,” he muttered, almost to himself. Keith frowned, there was something that John was hiding from him, he could just tell and John never used to keep secrets. Not from him, at least.

 

“Well, maybe we can stay in, like the old days, huh?” Keith smiled at the memory. Those were the days, when the band wasn’t making any money at all, or at least not at the pace they were spending it. Kit and Chris would put them up in these godawful hotels in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but get trashed and trash the joint. John hated it, he loved the limos and the jets and the five star hotels. But Keith missed it, missed the closeness they used to have. Nowadays, John always seemed a little standoffish, a little cold and while Keith wasn’t much for excessive introspection, he couldn’t help but feel that he was the cause of it all, somehow.

 

John opened his mouth, _to decline,_ Keith thought, bitterly, _to say he wants to be alone,_ but then he slowly closed it and smiled a sweet, open smile down at the seemingly irrepressible drummer. Something warm spread through him at the sight of that smile but he didn’t pause to dissect the feeling. “Actually, Keith, staying in sounds nice. Let me grab my coat and we can get out of here.”

 

It was incredible how happy John could make Keith feel with the slightest gesture. Sometimes he could get so angry and mean he almost scared himself. It was always John that could cheer him up or make him laugh with only a crooked eyebrow or a funny expression. Like most things in his life, it left Keith overcompensating. “Oh, this will be great. We can have a grand time, you should see all the stuff I’ve got. People just give it to me! You won’t believe it.” Keith bounded in front of John happily and walked backward ahead of him continuing to chatter as John made his way into the dressing room to retrieve his coat. “Bill thinks he has been confiscating it all, but he always throws it out at the same time and I have been planting aspirin and shit where he will…”

 

John brushed against Keith as he reached for his coat. Keith froze as the aftershocks of the touch reverberated down his spine, quite losing track of what he was saying.

 

Keith remembered when all he felt for John was the strong and enduring love of a man for his best mate. And he also remembered when his gaze started to linger a bit too long on the line of John’s leg in a tight pair of trousers. Or the way the corners of his mouth would quirk up when Keith did something outrageous and his eyebrows would lift just a fraction of an inch in incredulous mirth.

 

Keith Moon liked women. He liked their smell, their curves, the soft, prettiness of them. But women were always demanded things of Keith that he couldn’t quite remember or want to do. They were always choosing other men over him. Or else, they came and went in a never ending parade, faces that barely made an impression once the night was through and the sober morning dawned.

 

It didn’t perturb him to speculate that things might be better with someone who was already his friend. Who was as steady and undemanding as a rock. Not that he would ever tell John. _Oh God, I can just see how that would go. Oh hey, John, your best friend, who has shared countless hotel rooms with you is a pouf. And moreover, he would like to shag you. That would probably end well._ Keith made a face.

 

“Is everything all right?” The rumble of John’s voice caused the shivers to pick up again and head straight to his groin by way of his stomach. _What is wrong with you?_ Keith thought, _get a fucking hold of yourself._

 

“Uh, yeah, just caught a glimpse of that redhead over there. Just wondering if the carpet matches the drapes, if you know what I mean,” he stuttered, trying to waggle his eyebrows suggestively. _Stupid. Look, now he is grinning down at you like you are a bloody eight year old. Real smooth, Moon._

“Come on, Keith, let’s get out of here.”

***

 

The knock on Roger’s hotel room door seemed unnaturally loud in the still quiet of the expansive suite. Roger jumped a little, his heart racing from the unexpected interruption. He stared at the door, wondering who he hoped and feared might be knocking, more than a little disturbed at the thought that they might be the same person.

 

There had been a girl here earlier, but she must have left when Roger made it clear that all he was going to do that night was sit on the edge of the bed and study the carpet. Besides, underneath the makeup and the low cut blouse, Roger had seen the slightly deadened, glazed look in her eyes and the small lines around her lips from holding them too tight.

 

“You don’t need this,” he had whispered, wondering vaguely when he had started caring what the groupies needed. “Where are you from?”

 

“Bremen, Indiana.” She looked distinctly surprised at the question and Roger could tell that she was a practiced one, one who knew all too well how these things tended to happened. It made him feel tired.

 

“Isn’t there a nice boy in Bremen waiting for you?” There usually was. The softer, the less practiced girls would usually break down afterwards and tell him about it.

 

She had lifted her chin defiantly. “I am not going back there.”

 

Roger chuckled a little, thinking about Acton and how far away it seemed at the moment. “Yeah, of course, doll. But maybe he is willing to come with you where ever you are going.”

 

She looked thoughtful and got up to go sit on the suite’s sofa. Roger resumed staring at the floor. After awhile, now that he thought about it, he had heard the door to the room open and shut softly.

 

The knock sounded again, more insistent this time, breaking into his recollections. “I know you’re in there. You might as well open up.” The voice was muffled, but not muffled enough to keep Roger from identifying it. He sighed and got to his feet unsteadily to go open the door.

 

He wrenched the door open, feeling a stirring of self-righteous annoyance at being disturbed. Pete stood outside, his fist raised mid-knock, a look of surprise on his face.

 

“What do you want?” he demanded.

 

Pete looked slightly off his stride at Roger’s tone but he did his best to recover his own indignation. “What was that out there on stage? What are you trying to prove?”

 

“God, Pete, I don’t know,” he sighed and rubbed his face with one hand. He had regretted the microphone stunt as soon as he had left the stage and cooled off a little. Not in the least because Pete would want an explanation. “I guess I was just a little angry with you…with everybody.”

 

“A little angry?” Pete’s eyebrows were attempting to crawl up his forehead. “You could have clobbered me!”

 

Roger snorted. “Pete, I could pick a fly off your nose at ten paces and, with your nose, that’s saying something. You weren’t in any danger.”

 

Pete looked as if he wanted to take issue with the nose remark, but instead forcibly made himself let it go. “I…hell, I actually came to apologize, Roger.”

 

“Apologize.” Roger’s voice was flat with disbelief.

 

“For kissing you,” Pete swallowed hard and looked away. “I thought…well, it seemed as though you were as lonely as…” he trailed off. Roger watched him carefully. “I guess you were right. I don’t really know what I want.”

 

Roger smiled sadly at the melancholy in Pete’s voice and felt the same flow of protective affection towards the gangly man as he had all those years ago when Pete had shown up in his house to audition, all awkward self-consciousness and simmering brilliance. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to hit you. You just surprised me, is all.” Roger shifted uncomfortably. “And scared me, too, a little.”

 

Pete raised his head and pinned Roger in his penetrating blue stare. “Tell me what is wrong, Roger. Stop this charade. We both know what a terrible liar you are.”

 

Roger hesitated, but he couldn’t help but admit to himself that telling someone else what had happened might come as a relief. _God knows I have chased it around so many times in my head that I need a fresh perspective._ He steadied himself.

 

“I slept with John, Pete.”

 

Pete inhaled sharply. “That sounds like a monumentally dumb thing to do,” he replied with a forced nonchalance.

 

Roger searched his expression for any indication of what the guitarist was thinking, but his face was a carefully schooled blank slate.

 

He looked up at the ceiling. “You have no idea.”

 

“What…” Pete coughed to clear his throat and then began again. “What happened?”

 

Roger could feel the beginnings of a flush creeping up his neck. Suddenly, the room was very, very warm and he did everything he could to avoid meeting Pete’s eyes. _He says I’m a terrible liar. Well, let’s see if he buys this one…_ “Do you remember when John got mad and stormed off the stage in Dallas?”

 

Pete frowned slightly and then said slowly, “Yeah…we had to send someone to persuade him to come back for the encore. He was pretty pissed. He threw his bass…at you.”

 

“Well, he confronted me backstage after,” Roger said softly, studying his fingernails. “At first we were fighting. Then…well, then we weren’t fighting anymore.”

 

He looked up in time to see Pete, staring into space, blink rapidly a few times. He looked as though he was trying to think of something to say and reaching a blank. Finally, just as the silence was becoming uncomfortable enough to make Roger shift nervously, Pete responded, “So that’s all? That’s what has had the two of you jumpy as cats around each other these past weeks?”

 

“All!?” Roger yelped, indignantly. “Pete, I don’t think you heard me. I slept with _John._ ”

 

“Oh, I heard. But it isn’t like you to get so hung up on these sorts of things.” There was an odd note in Pete’s voice and Roger got the impression that the other man’s casualness might not be entirely genuine.

 

Roger snorted. “Well, he is a bloke. I think it calls for some introspection.”

 

Pete half shrugged and waved a hand as though dismissing Roger’s gender-based concerns as a matter of course. As Pete opened his mouth for more undoubtedly probing questions, Roger felt a swell of exhaustion overwhelm him. He really was in no mood for Pete’s grilling and this exchange wasn’t making anything clearer to him.

 

“Look, Pete. I will answer any damn thing you like later. But right now it’s late and I’m tired and we have a long day tomorrow. Can you just leave? Please?”

 

Pete looked as if he were about to argue but then he just shook his head. “Sure, Roger. Whatever you want. I’ll see you later. Get some rest.”

 

***

 

Pete closed the door to Roger’s room almost gingerly and then stared at it blankly, desperately trying to process the emotions that were teeming through him like bees. Surprise warred with apprehension and anger but it was the overriding surge of jealousy that disturbed him the most. He had a powerful urge to go and find John and… _what, Pete? Beat him up like an overprotective brother?_ He pinched the bridge of his nose. _No, not like a brother. Not like a brother at all._

 

He turned to go, feeling the nagging sensation of some epiphany dawning. It was almost like a song and he knew enough that if he just got his brain out of the way it would come. Finally, as he got into the elevator to return to his own room, it arrived and he could nearly smack himself for his blindness. Pete fell back against the wall of the elevator and stared up at the flickering fluorescent light, wondering to himself when exactly he was so stupid to go and fall in love with Roger Daltrey.

 

_Well, that complicates things._

 

***

 

Keith glanced briefly at profile of the man sitting next to him on the sofa in the expansive hotel suite. John’s chin was tipped upward and he was looking down the length of his nose at the television, smoking thoughtfully. He had changed out of his stage clothes into a vibrantly colored shirt and jeans, his bare feet propped up on the table. Keith watched as he languorously rubbed the arch of one foot with the flexed toes of the other and thought vaguely about foot fetishes. He wondered if he had one or whether it was just these feet in particular and the thoughts had him shifting uncomfortably and pulling a throw pillow onto his lap.

 

 John laughed at something on the television and through the pleasant buzzing in his head brought on by just the right flow of gin and whatever it was that had ended up in his pocket, definitely a blue, round sort of something, Keith reflected that John had a very pleasant laugh. The other man was studiously careful about not crossing onto Keith’s side of the sofa, though, and it was making Keith feel a bit uneasy. They used to be very free with each other physically. _Oh God, what if I have done something to make him suspect? If I were him and knew what I thought about him late at night, I wouldn’t want me too close either._

 

Keith cleared his throat. “This is nice, isn’t it, dear boy?” He tried to act nonchalant. “We haven’t spent a lot of time just hanging out lately.”

 

“You’ve been in California,” John answered, not taking his eyes off of the screen.

 

John’s tone was almost accusatory and Keith tried not to wince. He wanted to say, _Yeah, Johnny my lad, in California. Because there I can hang out with the lovely California girls and not have to dwell on the social and bloody psychological ramifications of wanting to fuck my bandmate all the damn time. It’s grand, you should try it sometime, although be prepared for the hell it puts your liver through._ Instead, he leered at the other man and said, “Well, you’re pretty enough, but I think the girls on the beach in their bikinis have you beat.”

 

John smiled one of his rare, crooked smiles and Keith almost jumped him right then and there. He thought briefly of the vicar costume in his luggage and how it would give him an excuse to misbehave, but his thoughts along those lines were interrupted by the sound of knocking at the room door.

 

John glanced at Keith and said, “You didn’t call for room service when I wasn’t looking, did you?”

 

Keith laughed and shook his head.

 

“Throw something out the window when I was in the loo?”

 

“John!” Keith protested. “You always think the worst of me And besides…it is much too early to start trashing hotel rooms.” He made a tsking noise as John guffawed and got up to see who was at the door.

 

“It’s Pete,” John said with mild surprise as he peered out the peephole. “I wonder what he wants.”

 

 John swung open the door and Keith could see Pete’s pinched, white face over John’s shoulder. He was bouncing slightly on his toes with the restless, pent up energy that sometimes consumed him. The guitarist’s eyes met Keith’s briefly and he blanched.

 

“What is it, Pete?” John slightly slurred the words and Keith wondered exactly how much the other man had had to drink so far. Pete looked serious but not despairing and therefore sober, that unfocused goofiness or terrible anguish he alternating had when drunk were nowhere to be seen.

 

“Can I talk to you?” Pete’s eyes flicked to Keith again. “Alone.”

 

John looked over his shoulder at Keith and then turned back to Pete, muttering, “Sure.”

He stepped out of the room and half closed the door behind him.

 

Keith sat on the couch contemplating for a moment before his natural curiosity overcame him and he walked, as silently as possible, to the door. Pete and John had not gone far down the hall and Keith could clearly make out what they were saying, although he did not dare risk discovery by getting a better view through the door left ajar.

 

“…told me what happened, John.” Pete’s voice was soft and carefully neutral.

 

“What do you mean?” John rumbled and Keith knew that tone. It was the don’t come any closer tone, the warning tone.

 

Pete obviously didn’t know the tone or at least didn’t care. “You slept with Roger.”

 

Keith reeled back, feeling as if he had been kicked in the stomach. By a horse. John and… _Roger!?_ Keith was so distracted by the visions his treacherous mind was throwing at him, he almost missed John’s reply.

 

“What did he tell you?” If John’s voice had been a rumble before, it was most definitely a growl now.

 

“He said that you confronted him after the show in Dallas. That you were fighting and then you had sex.” Keith winced at the words, shaking with a sick feeling tension and a heavy knot settled in his stomach. “I don’t think he told me the whole story. That’s why I’m here.”

 

“What makes you think you have the right to the whole story? Pete Townshend, arbitrator of all knowledge and dispenser of justice?” John said with derision seeping from his voice.

 

“I don’t give a shit who you fuck, John, but I won’t have you fuck this tour up.” Pete was starting to get angry and there was a definite edge to his words. “Roger’s distracted, he’s forgetting lines. I want to know why and I want you to fix it.”

 

“Ah, so the only one who is allowed to screw over the band is you, Pete?” Keith could hear the sneer in John’s voice and recoiled a little at his coldness. “Isn’t that right? How long can it last anyway without your heart in it?”

 

Keith decided that he needed to be able to see John’s face. He shifted a little and found that the crack in the hinge side of the door was just big enough for him to get a pretty good view if he carefully pressed his face to it. Pete’s piercing blue eyes were pinned on John’s face and the bassist was scowling back, balefully.

 

“Just tell me what happened, John. If you didn’t want to, you would have slammed that door in my face a long time ago.” Keith felt like this was a fair point. Often a slammed door was the only way to prevent an overly long diatribe from Pete and the guitarist must have picked up on that by now.

 

John pulled himself up and glared at his slender opponent for a moment before crumpling in on himself and turning away. “We were fighting. I got aroused and I fucked him,” he said, emotionlessly.

 

Pete simply stared at John, unwilling to say anything that might stop the other man from continuing. Keith pressed his hand to his mouth, hoping that if he pressed hard enough, John would stop speaking, come back into the room and things could go back to the way they were. It was a feeble plan, he could admit.

 

“I don’t think he entirely wanted me to do it,” John mumbled, looking down at his hands to avoid seeing Pete’s expression. Pete was still staring at John in that intensely focused way he had sometimes, when he wasn’t trying to blunt his mind with alcohol or pills. He blinked as though refusing to hear what John had said.

 

“What did you say?” Keith winced as Pete’s voice broke on the words.

 

“I said, he didn’t want me to do it, Pete!” John snarled through clenched teeth. “I don’t know what came over me and, believe me, I’ve been thinking about it _a lot_. I was just so angry with him,” John pushed the heel of his hand into his forehead as if trying to hold his brain in. “You know how he gets. I wanted to knock him down a few notches and he looked so…good. How can he act so innocent? So holy? He’s guilty of the same shit we all are.” John looked at Pete desperately.

 

“God, John. What if he…”

 

“I fucking know, Pete.” John keened, desperately. “Shit.”

 

“But what about…” Pete’s eyes flitted past John, towards Keith’s hiding spot.

 

“Stop it, not here.” John gestured sharply at the hotel door and turned to peer at it. Keith ducked back behind the door, his heart fluttering madly. “ _That_ has nothing to do with this.”

 

“How can it not, John? You don’t think whatever it is you feel for Keith wasn’t a factor in…what you did?” Keith whipped his head up at the mention of his name.

 

“I love him, Pete. I can’t do anything about that and I sure as hell won’t let any of this…shit change things.”

 

Pete was looking past John’s shoulder with a decidedly odd look on his face because, at that moment, Keith had thrown the door open and stood in the middle of the entryway, gaping at John and feeling as though someone had hit him upside the head with a board.

 

***

 

Roger had finally managed to fall into a fitful sleep. His tossing and turning had snarled the sheets of the bed into a tangled knot around his body and his sleep was full of claustrophobic unease. He had started falling into a deeper, dreaming sleep when he was yanked abruptly to consciousness by a loud pounding that reverberated through the room. He jerked up and halfway out of bed, but the sheets tripped him and he ended up falling heavily to his hands and knees by the side of the bed. The pounding continued.

 

Carefully, Roger extracted himself from the jumbled mess and get to his feet, rubbing his sore knees with a groan. _This is getting ridiculous_ , he thought as he opened the door to Pete’s raised fist for the second time that night.

 

Pete’s face was flushed and he was breathing heavier than normal. He twisted his hands into the front of Roger’s t-shirt and pushed him against the wall, inexorably.

 

“You didn’t tell me the whole story,” Pete hissed.

 

Roger felt his heart begin to pound in his ears. “Who have you been talking to?” he asked, although he knew the answer to that question all too well.

 

“John,” Pete responded, tersely. “And now I want to hear…no, I _need_ to hear the whole story from you. Because if what John said is true, it has implications. Fucking big implications.”

 

Roger tried to fight down a wave of panic. A sick feeling deep in his chest was telling him what Pete was thinking, what he hadn’t been able to think for himself. He couldn’t bear for Pete to say it out loud and to make it true.

 

“I told you what happened,” Roger replied, his voice a harsh whisper. “There isn’t anything else. That is _it._ ” He had to stop Pete from going on.

 

“He raped you, Roger.” Pete’s gaze bore into Roger, unblinking. The pounding in his ears became a roaring and Roger would have slumped to the ground if not for Pete’s hands still grasping the front of his shirt.

 

“No,” he murmured, shaking his head desperately. “It wasn’t like that.” He grabbed Pete’s collar and spoke thickly through his embarrassment. “Pete, I _enjoyed_ it.”

 

“Just because you came doesn’t make it not rape.” Roger continued to shake his head, refusing to look at the taller man.

 

“I could have stopped him and I didn’t, Pete. He needed to dominate me and I think…on some level…I needed him to,” Roger felt something break loose inside of him at the words and he gasped. He was still angry and helpless, but he wasn’t confused anymore.

 

And then Pete moved his hand. It brushed up against Roger’s hip and thigh before coming to rest delicately on the back of his leg just above his knee and sent shock waves reverberating through his body. He looked up into Pete’s face and was frightened by what he saw there, Pete’s lust was raw and emotional and there was a streak of feral possessiveness that made Roger’s blood run cold. He panicked again but this time refrained from lashing out.

 

“I think I know what I want now, Roger, and it makes me afraid of myself.” There was a strange glitter in Pete’s eyes, he was holding his body tense and carefully away from the other man. He leaned forward until his lips brushed against Roger’s ear. “I want what John had.”

 

***

 

“You…love me?” Keith felt raw and exposed, as though Pete had single-handedly stripped all the layers of protective camouflage from between the two of them with his words. He longed to shrug it off with a joke or say something in a funny accent, anything to put his mask up again and to stop John’s face from looking like that. Like he wished the ground would swallow him up so that he would never have to face Keith again.

 

“Goddamn you and your meddling, Pete,” John growled almost to himself, not quite meeting Keith’s eyes. Pete shifted uncomfortably and looked about ready to bolt. “Look Keith…”

 

“Please don’t try to deny it. We all heard what you said.” Keith gritted his teeth as he heard the whine in his voice.

 

“Umm, please don’t drag me into this,” Pete pleaded and winced as John shot him a look. “That is, not anymore into this than I already made myself…I really should go…”

 

“It’s okay, Keith, laugh. I can take it. I may be a fucking pathetic excuse for a human being, but I can understand how you feel about this.” The resigned sadness with which the bigger man spoke struck Keith and rooted him to the spot.

 

“I’m not laughing,” Keith responded, a tad more emotionally than he would have liked. Pete began to edge away slowly. The two men did not spare him a glance as he made his exit. Keith didn’t think he would feel like laughing ever again now that he thought about it. John looked up at Keith’s words, tossing his head like a startled horse and finally getting caught in Keith’s stare accidentally. “How long?” the drummer inquired, forcing a calm into his voice that he did not feel.

 

John’s eyebrows raised and he looked as if he had been expecting any question but that. “I don’t know, Keith. Forever.” John paused and squinted, thinking carefully. “Do you remember that crummy little pub we played in White City? A couple of months after we hooked up with Meaden? There were some yobs there hassling you for your clothes or some shit.”

 

Keith smiled a little. He remembered. The blokes had been old classmates of his and had taken exception to his sequin-adorned, skin-tight shirt. They had started flinging beer bottles and he had seen Roger from the corner of his eye on the edge of leaving the stage to dispense some hard justice.

 

“You told them that their mothers hadn’t seemed to mind your clothes. And then you said, well maybe she did, she was probably still picking sequins out of her teeth,” John said, his eyes touched with bittersweet mirth.

 

“And then Roger decked the big one!” Keith chuckled at the memory. “The look on his face when he realized the ‘little singer’ had knocked him right off his feet! Oh, those were the days, weren’t they, John? I had never seen you laugh so hard.”

 

John was smiling sadly. “That’s when I realized I loved you. I’m sorry you had to find out like this. I hope that this won’t ruin anything. I am content just being your friend.” John exhaled loudly. “After all, I’ve managed for years.”

 

Looking at the wistful expression on John’s face, Keith suddenly had no idea what to say. He didn’t know how to convince him that he felt the same way, that he wasn’t just being kind out of pity or putting on some trick. He thought briefly about Roger, but choose to ignore the uncomfortable ache of that issue. There would be plenty of time for that later.

 

As his words failed him, Keith thought, _Fuck it. Words are overrated as a debating tool any way._ He reached up and grabbed John’s head with both hands, burying his fingers into John’s silky, jet black hair. The calluses on his palms brushed against the stubble on John’s face and the touch sent a bolt of nervous lust through his body. It felt like nausea and falling and the thrill of beating the crap out of a drum kit all at once. Pulling John down to him, he proceeded to give the bassist the first real and honest kiss the two had shared. It felt like bottled up lightning.

 

John broke away from the kiss, gasping. “Keith, I…”

 

Keith pressed his hand to John’s lips and said, simply, “Me too, Johnny. Me too.”

 

And then he showed the other man that he meant it. Thoroughly.  

 

***

 

“Keith…” John pulled away again. They had backed from the door, stumbling, until John had run into the arm of the sofa and sat down heavily. Keith had gotten both their shirts off, desperate to get closer to the skin he had fantasized about touching for so long. For a long while, whenever they sat next to each other in a limo or at a pub, electric sparks of arousal had coursed through his body as he thought about just licking John’s arm, tasting the other man’s skin. _Best keep that one to yourself,_ he thought as he kicked off his shoes and pressed forward between John’s legs.

 

“Keith.” John placed his hand on his chest, stalling him. Keith could see the bulge straining against John’s trousers and noted the high flush staining his cheeks, but otherwise the bassist was completely impassive, a small crease barely wrinkling his brow and betraying his emotions. “I don’t understand…why do you want this?”

 

“Do you want to know what you do to me, John? Do you need me to tell you about your charm?”

 

John’s breathing hitched the tiniest possible amount and he nodded mutely. Keith slowly reached his hands out to undo the front of his trousers, moving deliberately as one would not to startle a wild animal. “You keep me grounded, John. I would go flying off in a million directions if I didn’t know you were always there, right behind me.” Keith swallowed hard, desperately fighting off the tightening under his eyes, wishing John would stop looking at him so searchingly. “Your friendship was the best thing I had—do you think I would chance losing that on the dim possibility you wanted more? Wanted this?”

 

“God, we are a pack of fools, Keith,” John’s voice was husked with feeling. “I couldn’t bear the thought that you might find out.”

 

Keith ducked his head, needing a distraction. He freed John’s erection, reveling in the pleasure of the weight of it in his hand and ran his thumb across the velvet hooded head, catching a drop of glistening precome. John clutched desperately at the sofa. Keith moved his thumb, trailing the slick moisture and pressed against the underside of the head in the sensitive divot. John hissed out a syllable that may have been Keith’s name.

 

The drummer wrapped his hand around John’s shaft, briefly wishing his hands weren’t rough and calloused from years of abuse. John didn’t seem to mind as his eyes fluttered half closed at the other man’s touch and bucked upwards into Keith’s grip. John felt unbelievably good in his hand, impossibly warm, delicately soft and yet with a core of iron unyielding to the firmest grasp.

 

“Stop…wait,” John gasped. “I need to—uhghn, that feels good—touch you.”

 

“Oh God, please,” Keith moaned. He felt like he was at risk for a permanent injury if he didn’t escape the confines of his constricting trousers soon. John worked quickly and Keith shuddered at his touch. His knees were weak and he was vaguely jealous of John’s seat on the arm of the sofa.

 

He leaned his forehead against John’s shoulder and pressed into his grip. He couldn’t believe how wonderful it all was and the sensation threatened to pull him under. Soon they were both panting raggedly, hands pumping the other man with a familiar-strange feeling of doing this to someone else instead of one’s self. John’s other hand was grabbing Keith’s ass, crushing him closer and digging his fingers into his firm backside with all of their sinewy strength.

 

“John, I can’t…” Keith gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on maintaining his rhythm and not on the hot friction against his length, but he could feel his completion nearing with grim certainty. “Ah, slow down…I’m going to…”

 

John didn’t reply or falter in his pace. He raised his head and pinned the drummer in his piercing blue gaze and Keith felt more naked and exposed than ever before. Keith tried to inhale and couldn’t. John’s expression softened and the corner of his mouth turned up slightly. _God,_ thought Keith, _I have spent my whole bloody life doing all sorts of shit to make him smile. Who knew that I only needed to give him a sloppy hand job on a hotel sofa?_ The smile widened and Keith’s orgasm hit him like a ton of bricks or several tons of bricks being piled on in pulses. He came in wrenching spurts over the other man’s hand, each throbbing shot shaking him to the core.

 

John gasped watching Keith’s completion and he thrust hard into his hand. He tensed as he came, breathing hard through his nose and Keith thought the sight was one of the most glorious he had ever seen. Keith held on for dear life as the last pulses wrung through the other man, his own rhythm of final twitches falling together with John’s. With a last shudder, John fell backwards onto the sofa and pulled Keith down after him, the two band mates were tangled in a pile of cushions, jeans, limbs and come.

 

Keith wormed his way closer to the bassist, needing to be in contact with as much of his skin as possible. John hesitantly put his arms around the younger man and it was this intimacy that almost seemed too much and left Keith feeling awkward and shy all over again. Everything had seemed so simple when he had had that pre-orgasm determination and John’s cock in his hand. Now the questions came flooding back. _I knew this couldn’t be as simple as all that._

 

“I need to know about Roger, John.” Keith didn’t want to say the words, thinking about it gave him a sick feeling in his gut that pushed away the pleasant haze of orgasm. John let his breath go in a rush, stirring Keith’s hair even as he pulled him closer.

 

“I am not a very good person, Keith.” John’s rumble held a note of warning and he sounded like a stranger.

 

Keith shivered and tried to be light. “God, neither am I.”

 

John was silent for a while, long enough that Keith wondered if he was going to respond. Finally, he said, softly, “It scared me. Not at the time, of course, but later. I am not one to lose control like that. You know, I think Pete was right. That I was caught up with all my repressed feelings for you and couldn’t stop…” John hesitated and Keith felt him shaking his head. “Pete, the pub shrink.”

 

Keith shifted to John’s side so that he could see the other man better. “I do things I don’t intend all the time. How would Pete diagnose me?”

 

John pressed his lips together and then looked away. “Dr. Jimmy and Mr. Jim…” he whispered tunelessly. “It’s all fun and laughs, isn’t it, Keith? Until it isn’t anymore.”

 

Keith pressed his face against John’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispered, the plaintive vulnerability he normally kept hidden at all costs leaking through.

 

“Shh, it’ll be alright now,” John soothed.

 

Keith desperately wanted to change topics. “What about Roger? Is he upset with you? The band…”

 

“I will deal with Roger,” John interrupted. “I have been putting it off too long. I got us all into this mess and I should be the one to get us out. It was a mistake but, besides, it’s not like he had a completely objectionable time.”

 

Unbidden, the image of the dark, taller man entwined with the compact blond leapt into Keith’s mind. It made him feel strange. Revolted, yes…and jealous as hell, but also strangely aroused. Incredibly, his cock managed to twitch against John’s leg and begin to slowly unfurl as it filled with a surge of hot blood.

 

John noticed. “Do you like to hear about me fucking Roger?” That word in that context dropped so casually from John’s lips unaccountably made Keith even harder.

 

Keith squirmed a little under John’s unflinching gaze. “It makes me sick. It makes me want to go find him and punch him except for the fact that Pete is probably shagging him by now and the thought of witnessing that makes me even sicker. But the thought of _you_ …fucking…“ Keith raised his eyebrows expectantly and John smiled in a predatory way that shot straight to Keith’s groin.

 

“Who would you rather think of me fucking?” John’s beard hid his mouth and made it difficult for Keith to judge how serious he was. Keith licked lips that had suddenly gone dry and cleared his throat.

 

“Me. I want to think about you fucking me,” Keith replied hoarsely. He rubbed himself, involuntarily, on John’s leg.

 

“You are insatiable, Moon,” John said with a note of amused exhaustion in his voice.

 

“I’ve been waiting for this a very long time. I want to make it one for the record books.”

 

“Oh, how’s that?”

 

“I am going to make you forget all about ever fucking Roger fucking Daltrey.” John frowned slightly as he worked that one out and then quirked his lips humorlessly.

 

“Ah, don’t worry about that, dear boy, you already have.” John sat up, pulling his arm out from under Keith awkwardly. “Here…turn over.” Keith rolled into the empty space left by John’s torso, pulling one leg up. John sat behind him and lightly touched the curve of his arse. His soft, almost touch made Keith break out in goose pimples and buck into the cushions of the sofa.

 

“Jesus Christ, you are gorgeous.” John’s hushed, nearly reverent tone made Keith flush in embarrassment. He thought about the softness in his middle that had never been there before, the hair in places that were not very flattering when you thought about it and his pale, English skin. He was interrupted in his self-doubt by John’s hands firmly grasping and parting the globes of his arse and rubbing his firming length along Keith’s cleft.

 

Keith moaned and pushed back into John’s stroke, thinking that he could do this for hours. Before he could establish an effective rhythm, however, John pulled away and murmured, “Be right back.”

 

Keith barely had time to mourn the loss of the other man before he had returned, rubbing something between his hands. He quickly found out the purpose of that when John’s slicked fingers ran down from the base of his spine to the root of his balls. He nearly jumped of the sofa when a slender finger nudged past the ring of tight muscle and slipped inside of him.

 

“All right there?” John asked, humor in his deep voice.

 

“Hell, John, that is incredible,” Keith panted.

 

“Hmm, if you think that’s good…” John slid the finger in deeper, careful not to go too quickly against Keith’s taut body. As he had nearly pushed in the length of his finger, he angled down and into something inside Keith that made light burst behind his eyes. He was glad he was lying down.

 

“Bloody hell! What did you just do?!” Keith keened, breathlessly.

 

John snorted. “Feels good doesn’t it?” He continued to work his finger in and out and then carefully pressed two fingers into the other man.

 

“I want you inside me.”

 

“Patience.”

 

“Screw patience. We’ve waited for bloody well long enough.”

 

“Well, if you are sure…” John pulled Keith’s hips up until he was on all fours. The bassist positioned himself and then gently eased himself into the other man one trembling inch at a time. Keith tensed at the unfamiliar intrusion and immediately a searing pain torn through him and his arms buckled. John stopped and rubbed his lower back. “Just concentrate on relaxing. Don’t fight me.” Keith took a deep breath and did as he was told. Soon John was buried to the hilt and filling him with a strange feeling of closeness.

 

“God, you feel so warm and tight.” John was moving with small in and out thrusts as if holding himself back from full, unrestrained pounding. Keith gradually grew accustomed to the sensation of John inside of him and realized that it felt _good_.

 

“Johnny, I’m not going to break,” he said as he pushed back onto his cock, thrilling at the experience of impaling himself more deeply. John took that as all the permission he needed and began to thrust with measured but quickening strokes.

 

“There?” he asked as he changed his angle slightly and sent sparks flying in Keith’s brain once more.

 

“Aghh, right there,” Keith gasped. He needed contact and quickly. He tried to fall back down on the cushions but John held him up and snaked a hand around to seize his cock in a rough grip. He began thrusting hard and helplessly, his hand flying against Keith’s shaft, the wet slap of flesh on flesh nearly drowning out the sound of their heavy breathing. Finally, John tensed and drew halfway out before slamming fully in, his hot seed flooding Keith’s insides with warmth. Keith’s orgasm wrenched out of him almost painfully and he collapsed under John’s weight, hitting the sofa at nearly the same time as his spurting completion.

 

***

 

Roger wasn’t sure where he was going other than _away_. Away from Pete and his probing questions, his uncomfortable demands, away from his penetrating stare that made him feel emotions that he couldn’t quite explain and as far away as possible from this whole mess.

 

He strode through the hall of the hotel angrily, not noticing or caring if the people he passed stared at him strangely. Through the storm in his head, he observed a door to a room left halfway open and instinctively looked inside as he passed.

 

The sofa was placed perpendicular to the entryway. On it, he could see John holding a disheveled, sleeping Keith Moon. Clothes were scattered across the floor between the doorway and the sofa. John was staring down at Keith fondly and raised a long hand to smooth a bit of Keith’s flyaway hair out of his face. The touch was achingly tender, John seemed almost afraid to contact the other man lest he shatter under his hand.

 

Roger must have made some noise, because John looked up and froze as his eyes met Roger’s. Roger could see the mental calculation he did as he tried to determine how long it was possible for Roger to have been there without needing to give a major explanation. He closed his eyes as he arrived at the answer of not very fucking long.

 

“How can you fucking _pet_ him like that after what you’ve done to me?!” Roger dimly realized his voice was unnaturally high and verged on sounding slightly insane.

 

John eased himself out from underneath the sleeping Keith. He struggled into a pair of jeans that most likely belonged to Keith and pushed Roger roughly out of the suite and into the hall. He closed the door behind him softly but firmly and then whipped around to face Roger.

 

“What? What did I do to you, Roger? Give you a bit of a rougher orgasm than the little girls can manage? Defend myself? ‘Cause I would really like to know what it is I am being accused of.” John’s eyes sidled away from Roger’s face but the venom in his voice was unapologetic.

 

“Pete says…”

 

“Oh, Pete says? You’ve run and told mum about your little boo boo, huh, Daltrey? I want to hear exactly what Pete says,” John demanded, roughly.

 

Roger stared back at him, feeling his eyes becoming unnaturally large in his strained face. He should have expected this side of John, both he and Keith had it, especially when cornered. They could slice open someone’s self-confidence with a cruel razor blade, fight back until their opponent lay bleeding and broken in front of them.

 

“Come on…are you too much of a coward to say it…” John said, low and dangerous, “…to say what empty platitudes Pete gave you when he was trying to get in your pants?”

 

“He wasn’t…” Roger sucked in his breath, abruptly remembering suppressed tension in Pete’s voice and the words he had whispered before Roger had blindly taken off.

 

“Oh, don’t be denser than you already are, Dip.”

 

Roger struggled to hold on to his temper, bouncing a little on his toes and exhaling forcefully through his nose. “I won’t say it because I don’t think it is true.”

 

John’s head snapped up. “What did you say?”

 

“I said, I don’t think it’s true…I don’t think that you raped me.” Roger turned away, gasping and broke down, lashing out at the wall, hitting it hard with his fists and leaving smears of blood behind on the rough plaster. He dimly realized that he was breathing too hard, but no matter what he did he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. Saying the word made him feel helpless and desolate and he needed to lash out at something, anything. He nearly jumped out of his skin when big, strong arms encased him from behind, gently pinning his wrists to his chest and stopping his frantic thrashing.

 

“Hush, now…be calm, stop.” Slowly, after a few hiccupping sobs, Roger’s breathing returned to normal and he closed his eyes. “I am sorry,” John speaks slowly. “So sorry.”

 

“I never wanted to be anyone’s enemy, John! I just fucking _care_ about this band,” He struggled to bring his voice down from a shrill wail. “I feel like I am dragging the damn thing along by myself. Fighting Moon and his rock star pretensions, fighting Pete’s neurosis, fighting you about who the hell knows what. Is it really so awful to be in this band that you all hate me for trying to keep it together?” He stopped and looked down away from John, fearing he had said too much. “Where would you go if you weren’t here?”

 

“I don’t think I ever wanted to be your enemy either.” John stopped and sighed, his breath stirring Roger’s hair. “Is it so hard to believe that I am intimidated by you, Roger? That I resent your attempts to control everyone?”

 

“Yes,” Roger replied, flatly.

 

John chuckled, his laugh reverberating through Roger’s body. “Well, maybe if we start to just talk to each other…just a little…we can start to understand each other more.”

 

“That sounds very wise, John. I’m just not sure it will work. Do you even know the members of this band?” he said disbelievingly.

 

“Well, we never really expected to this far, did we? I always thought it was going to be over by my twenty-first birthday, when I would have to go and get a real job again.”

 

“I guess all we can do is keep on, then.”

 

“Look, I _am_ sorry for everything,” John opened his mouth to explain better, but no words would come.

 

It was Roger’s turn to sigh. “Me too, John. Me too.” He turned to go.

 

“Roger, wait,” John called.

 

Roger looked back at his bandmate. He was staring into the room at the sleeping Keith, a tender look on his face that erased all of the harsh lines normally present there. He glanced over at Roger.

 

“You should go find out if you love him. I think he has already decided and, believe me, it makes all the difference in the world.”

 

***

 

Roger found Pete in the hotel lobby, grimly drinking and drawing the stares of people passing through. He waited until the other man had managed to focus on him and said, softly, “Pete, we need to talk.”

 

Pete released a harsh laugh. “I really don’t think I need to fuck up another talk with you this week, Rog. I’m not looking to set records. Just leave me with what is left of my dignity.”

 

“Well, that isn’t much company,” Roger muttered, glaring at the desk clerk who was obviously gossiping on the phone with someone about the night’s spectacle. “Come on. Let’s at least get you back to your room.”

 

They walked back slowly, Pete rubbing his face and trying to either sober up or cling to his buzz and Roger thinking that he was getting very tired of looking at these same halls.

 

Pete fumbled in his pockets for a moment before finding his keys and opening the door. He hesitated awkwardly before gesturing for Roger to go in first. They stood in the entryway and avoided each other’s eyes. The silence stretched on until Roger could bear it no longer and reached for Pete’s hand.

 

“Well, I believe we were right about here before,” he said slowly, placing Pete’s hand on his thigh.

 

Pete’s eyes jumped to Roger’s face in surprise. “What are you doing?”

 

“I think I need to figure a few more things out.”

 

“Roger, I don’t think…”

 

“I don’t want you to think, just kiss me already.”

 

Pete leaned forward, sliding his hand up to Roger’s waist and their lips met. It was different than their last kiss, they were both hesitant and awkward, bumping teeth and noses until they fell into an arrangement of limbs and lips and tongues that seemed right.

 

Roger felt his arousal begin to pool in the base of his cock and then unfurl slowly, stretching skin and muscle and sending white hot sparks of energy through his nerves straight to his spine. Pete moaned and in his mind’s eye, a man darker and thicker than the one against him bared his teeth and pushed him to the ground. His erection did not flag at all as a wave of sickness swept over him and he pushed Pete away, pressing his hand to his mouth.

 

The realization of what had just happened dawned slowly on Pete and then he swung his arm around and down sharply, slapping the wall with the flat of his hand and causing Roger to jump in surprise.

 

“I am going to fucking kill him.” Pete’s eyes were hard and flinty.

 

“Pete, no, it’s settled okay?” Now that the moment had passed, Roger was left with a deep sense of loss and frustrated desire.

 

“I can’t touch you without you going white as a sheet and you say it’s settled?” Pete’s snarl could have been frightening if it wasn’t directed to the air over Roger’s shoulder.

 

“It _is_ settled. Can we just…can we just go slowly?”

 

Pete’s face softened. He pulled Roger into an embrace and he reflected on how different it felt to be held by a man. He buried his nose into his chest and breathed in the unique, very Pete-like smell of him. “Yeah, I’m going to do this one right this time,” Pete husked and Roger shivered in expectation.

 

Pete pulled him to the bed and then pushed him gently onto his back, straddling him loosely. Roger forced himself to stay in the moment as Pete carefully eased Roger’s t-shirt over his head and off of his arms before undoing the buttons and pulling off his own. When they were finally exposed in front of each other, Pete paused and Roger really, actually looked at the other man for probably the first time. His frame was lean but not scrawny and taut with sinewy muscle. Roger was faintly surprised to find his arousal hardening and deepening. He had never before found another man’s body to be beautiful.

 

Pete reddened under his scrutiny and stammered, “Please don’t stare.”

 

“God, Pete, can’t you see what you do to me? I am only staring because I can’t believe I never noticed before.” Roger bucked his hips up and Pete hissed as their erections brushed.

 

Pete quirked a self-deprecating half grin and then lowered his mouth to Roger’s chest. He moved with aching care and tenderness, pouring out caresses on Roger’s body. Roger fell into the pleasure, so deeply relaxed that when Pete’s mouth moved to place kisses along the length of his shaft, the panic that started to flutter in his stomach became lost and forgotten in the face of his contentment. He sighed and pushed up into the warm heat of the other man.

 

Pete shifted and reached for something. His hands returned to Roger’s body, hot and slick. Roger though briefly that he should be surprised as Pete caressed and parted the globes of his ass, rubbing along his cleft firmly but the touch felt so good that all he could do was melt into it. Pete continued his sensual strokes until Roger was moaning and arching into him.

 

Pete’s eyes never left Roger’s face as he pressed a finger to his entrance. It slipped inside so easy that Roger’s eyes widened and he pushed himself onto Pete more firmly. Pete worked him carefully, sliding a second finger in and gently driving against tight muscles. The smooth glide of his fingers inside of Roger was sending pulsing tremors of pleasure through him, wringing him out and leaving him aching for more.

 

“Pete, I need you inside me.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“God, yes…please, Pete.”

 

Pete’s fingers pulled out and he barely had time to mourn their loss before Pete’s cock was nudging against him. Pete entered him with agonizing slowness, Roger could feel himself stretching around the other man as, centimeter by centimeter, he filled the singer.

 

As soon as he thrust in fully, he began to pull out just as deliberately. Roger had never thought that such a leisurely pace could heighten each sensation so incredibly, but when Pete hit his prostate, the touch seemed to go on and on. He thought he would explode from the built up strain of his bliss, but he could never quite seem to reach the brink.

 

It seemed to go on for ages. Finally Pete gasped out, “Roger…oh!” and wrapped his hand around Roger’s swollen cock and stroked and thrust with abandon, finally holding nothing back. Roger gave a strangled cry as he poured himself out in milky spurts over Pete’s hand. Pete gasped at the sight and choked out his completion, collapsed and buried inside Roger.

 

They lay together for a long while, Roger breathing shallowly under Pete’s weight and feeling the butterfly delicate sensation of the other man going soft inside of him. It was perhaps the lack of oxygen or the rush of hormones that he had just experienced, but Roger began to feel a distinct sense of paranoia about his happiness. He shifted uncomfortably.

 

“How long?”

 

“How long until what?” Pete replied, sleepily.

 

“How long can I keep your attention, Pete? How long can the band keep your attention?” he paused and then asked what had been nagging at his mind for years. “How long did Karen manage before you only kept her on through sheer inertia?”

 

“Karen! Don’t bring her into this. What about Heather?” Pete pushed himself up on one elbow, his drowsiness gone instantly under Roger’s accusation.

 

Roger sighed, “That isn’t really the point, Pete.”

 

“What is the point?” Pete didn’t really sound angry anymore, only tired.

 

“I’ve been trying to catch your attention for years, Pete. To break into that world in your head that you guard so jealously. I think that I have even managed a time or two. When I asked you to join the band. When we fight, hell, just to break through to you is the only reason I ever dare provoke you. Right now, I think I have. But it never lasts. It is always for a fleeting moment. So I just want to know how long I can expect this time to last before you shut me out again.”

 

“I don’t know.” Pete frowned and rubbed his eyes. “Hell, I don’t know. But I promise to at least keep the door open for you this time.”

 

And as Pete pulled him closer, Roger reflected that that was all he could really ask for. It may not be the promise of stability, but at least it was a sight better than the relationship they had shared before.

 

***


End file.
